What are you reading?

[Infrasonic]

Courtesy of my local library.

 

[frederik_jon]

I am going to read an old classic "The graduate" in my school, which is a book my 50 year old mother also read when she was at school .

 

[Jorran]

Dante Alighieri - The Devine Comedy
Kate Mosse - Sepulchre

 

[HgaleK]

Currently reading:

-A Brief History of Time < Incredibly interesting, but it takes a lot of focus to absorb, otherwise I end up reading words without much meaning.

-Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business < On page one- it's for History (post reconstruction). Nothing special

Listening to:

-Atlas Shrugged: Ayn Rand obviously held a very high opinion of her work evident in the self important language she used in from what I've heard. It doesn't make the book any less interesting though.

 

[mccvi]

Trial & Death of Socrates - particular emphasis on the Apology.
Re-reading all of Sophocles - to counterbalance Plato's Socratic crap.

 

[RSN125]

Checklist Manifesto - easy, interesting, and worthwhile.

I think Gawande is great (although a bad speaker) but I preferred when he was apolitical.

 

[edinatlanta]

Ordinary Injustice. A little too polemic for me but it has some interesting stories. Not sure I fully agree with her premise.

 

[milosz]

 

[mintyfresh]

 

[Connemara]

Reading this for pleasure.

 

[Risque]

It's really, really good. Wanted to read it before I saw the movie. Bleak as hell, though.

 

[thomazzz]

Time and Chance by Sarah Kay Penman

A compelling historical novel about the reign of Henry II and the turbulant and sexy relationship between him and his badass of a wife, Elanore of Aquataine. It's a very vivid story full of politics that feel very real and very relevant. I recommend.

 

[onion]

So I just finished Freakonomics. I wasn't horribly impressed. The first 3 chapters were quite entertaining and interesting, but I had to force myself to read the last 2, as I found them insanely boring (about nature vs nurture, and baby names effecting peoples lives). Both chapters I think should have been condensed to one, though I wouldn't have complained if they were just left out.

One thing that surprised me in Freakonomics is they refer in one chapter a lot to Sudhir Venkatesh's work following the Black Kings gang of Chicago. My beef though is the facts they give are slightly different than what is written in Gangleader for a Day (Sudhir Venkatesh's book on the subject, written 2 years later), which was the book I happened to read before Freakonomics (by complete accident).

For example, they say JT, the gang leader, was sent to prison at the end, but in GLFAD, he leaves the gang after it breaks up and opens a barbershop, which failed, but all the same, he never ended up going back to prison. It also states T-Bone (in Freakonomics his name is "Booty") was killed by the gang shortly after giving over financial documents of the gangs activity to Sudhir. In GLFAD, he was sent to prison, where he did eventually get murdered, but that was a couple of years later. Also the gang name in Freakonomics was "Black Kings Disciples" or something, which in GLFAD was a defunct gang from the 60s. The Black Kings was the gang JT was the leader of.

I will say I read Superfreakonomics a couple of weeks ago (yeah, I read the second book first), and I found it to be much, much better written, and far more pleasurable to read. The authors don't stay on any subject too long, while still getting their point across well. Plus the topics are just better.

Now I'm on to Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.

 

[-revo-]

The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War by Jaroslav Hasek

Can never re-read this enough, it's a pure piece of jubilation, full of irony and fine humor.
Unfortunately my english is not good enough to talk about this novel as I'd want to, but I strongly recomment it as it happens to be my favorite novel

 

[limping_decorum]